Most reforms in government fail. They fail not because, once implemented, they yield unsatisfactory outcomes but because they never get past the implementation stage at all. Why do reforms fail? Why do reformers keep making the wrong choices or fail to make the right ones? What are the institutional constraints that could lead to the wrong choices being made? How can the prospects for success be improved?
This working paper from the Institute of Development Policy and Management seeks to identify some of the obstacles that keep reformers from making good choices. By focusing on the approach to reform, not on its content, the paper establishes that what matters most in improving the record of implementations are the strategic and tactical decisions taken in the course of putting the reforms into effect. The content of reform makes little difference to the success rate. The paper seeks to come to conclusions as to what approach is likely to maximise the chances of success and minimise those of failure. Three key tactical issues are analysed: the scope for reform, the role of aid donors, and the leadership of change.
Three important success factors in civil service reform are: keeping the scope of change narrow, limiting the role of aid donors, and giving reform firm leadership while simultaneously allowing for line management discretion. Findings include suggestions that:
- Practical experience in countries with widespread problems of low administrative capacity and poor performance favours an incremental approach to reform. It can also bring about radical transformations if sustained for long enough.
- Donors instead, tend to favour comprehensive reform programmes. The more a project promises to achieve, the more likely it is to get the necessary funding.
- The “power of the purse” of donors has led them to take centre stage in the selection and definition of reform projects, undermining the sense of local ownership and distorting decision-making as governments adopt initiatives that are likely to bring the most aid money rather than those that are the most necessary.
- Coordination problems among donors involved in the same field overload the capacity of governments and slow down project implementation.
- Effective central coordination and a sustained focus on end results are necessary to bridge internal gulfs and diffuse ownership of reform within government.
- Public pressure for better services would have little effect on government performance without the backing of internal mechanisms of accountability for results.
Policy implications include the need to:
- Avoid the temptation to address too many reform objectives simultaneously.
- Generate genuine commitment or ownership of a project since its design.
- Diffuse the sense of ownership within the different levels of government.
- Ensure that accountability mechanisms are in place before thinking about mobilising pressure from below.
- Introduce greater flexibility in the design and implementation of reforms and allow for more experimentation by host governments.
- Seek better coordination among donors.
